Giuliani defends NYC as families heckle

Bloomberg says state needs more security funds

May 20, 2004|By Rudolph Bush, Tribune staff reporter.

NEW YORK — Interrupted repeatedly by jeers from emotional relatives of Sept. 11 victims, former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Wednesday gave a compelling defense of New York's reaction to the disaster while members of the federal commission investigating the attacks again questioned the response of emergency workers.

Giuliani, the most lionized figure to emerge from the catastrophe, told the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States that firefighters and police who responded to the attacks gave the country "a story of heroism, a story of pride" rather than defeat.

"They saved more lives than anyone had any right to expect," Giuliani said. "Done differently, you would have had much more serious loss of life."

But during Giuliani's testimony, victims' family members seated right behind the former mayor--many of them the parents of fallen firefighters--shouted him down and demanded that he speak to problems with the Motorola radios firefighters were using on Sept. 11, 2001.

Among the protesters was Gerard Jean-Baptiste, whose son, firefighter Gerard Baptiste, was killed when the north tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

"My son died because the radio system was not working," he said later. "It made me angry."

Others in the crowd called Giuliani a liar and held up signs that read "Fiction" as he spoke, claiming the city has tried to sweep under the carpet anything that went wrong that day.

Commissioners also heard testimony from Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, with Bloomberg citing what he called a woeful lack of federal security funding for the state. Ridge agreed that more funds need to be shifted to New York.

As they had done Tuesday, commissioners focused on flawed communication systems within the Fire Department and among all of New York's emergency-response agencies.

Commission staff members, who interviewed hundreds of police officers and firefighters, concluded in a report issued Wednesday that fire commanders had considerable difficulty communicating with their units, that some off-duty firefighters came to the scene without radios and that some units that arrived at the twin towers were not accounted for.

Bloomberg testified that radio problems within the Fire Department have been solved with new equipment, but commissioners seemed to doubt that, and several witnesses disputed Bloomberg's view.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operated the World Trade Center and was charged with its security, also had significant communications problems on Sept. 11, 2001, commission staff concluded.

"The Port Authority's response was hampered" because officers inside the city's tunnels and airports were using a different radio frequency than commanders at the World Trade Center, the report said.

And at no point immediately after the attacks did the chief of the Fire Department, chief of the Police Department or the Port Authority superintendent communicate with one another, the report stated.

On Tuesday, commissioners sharply questioned public safety officials serving under Giuliani at the time of the attacks. But despite the public outcry Wednesday against Giuliani, commissioners praised the former mayor highly for his response and leadership, and they kept their questions mild.

Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, a former assistant U.S. attorney who worked with Giuliani when he was a federal prosecutor, asked about the lack of radio communication between police and firefighters.

Giuliani acknowledged the problem with radio communications.

Commissioners concluded on Tuesday that firefighters in the north tower were unaware of the south tower's collapse even though a police helicopter and marine unit witnessed it.

"The best answer is to create an interoperable system so a police radio can be switched onto the same frequency" used by other emergency services, Giuliani said.

The former mayor also strongly defended the city's command structure for the Fire and Police departments, something commissioners had criticized as vague and promoting interagency rivalries.

"The line of authority is clear. The mayor is in charge," Giuliani said. "That's why people elect the mayor."

But on Tuesday the commissioners probed concerns that at the scene of a major disaster, police and fire brass might jockey for power and waste time without a clear notion of who is in charge. Commission staff has suggested that the city consider appointing a single "incident commander" who would have operational control at the scene of a disaster.

Bloomberg rejected that idea.

"All the agencies that protect our city are as well led today as they have ever been," he said. "We all seek clarity in complex situations but that doesn't mean we should seek simplistic solutions."

The mayor defended the city's recently revamped Citywide Incident Management System that outlines which public safety department will take the lead in different types of crises.